FreelanceM.ag

Freelancing is risky. Freelancing is hard. Many freelancers fail.

We publish warnings so that potential freelancers don’t start freelancing without knowing the drawbacks. And there’s a good reason for those warnings. Some freelancing hype makes freelancing sound almost like a get-rich-quick scheme (which it’s most definitely not).

While freelancing has its drawbacks, it also has its benefits. One of the biggest benefits is not driving in traffic every day.

I should know, before I started freelancing I drove nearly two hours every single day just to go back and forth to work. I’m not the only one either.

According to U.S. Census Bureau statistics from WNYC, the average commuter drives just over 25 minutes a day to get to work. That’s nearly an hour–an hour that home-based freelancers don’t spend in their cars.

In this post, I’ll take a look at how that extra 50 minutes a day can make a real difference in your life.

If you like this post, you may also like Finding Your Balance as a Freelancer.

“Time is money.”

You’ve probably heard that saying before, but when you’re a freelancer those words take on a whole new meaning. If you’re freelancing and you’re not working on a billable project, you’re not making money.

As I point out in an earlier post, you don’t really have eight billable hours each day. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be trying to fill your freelancing day with as much billable work as you can realistically manage.

The truth is when you’re a freelancer, anything that keeps you from doing billable work is taking money out of your wallet.

In this post, I’ll identify seven culprits (including the administrative tasks I discussed in the earlier post) behind unbillable time. I’ll also explain how to minimize the amount of time you spend on those unbillable tasks so that you can earn more money.

What’s keeping you from freelancing success?

Sometimes, lack of opportunity isn’t the culprit. I’ve blogged about how freelancers sabotage themselves before.

The sabotages listed in my earlier post aren’t the only ways that freelancers hold themselves back. There’s another big problem that keeps many freelancers from succeeding. In fact, this problem is so common it deserves at least one post dedicated just to it.

That big problem is FEAR. We’re afraid to succeed. We’re afraid of failure. We’re afraid of taking chances. We’re afraid of rejection. We’re afraid of over committing. The list goes on and on.

So, we stay where we are. Not learning new things. Not taking chances. Playing it safe. Certainly not growing our freelancing business. Paralyzed by fear.

Is fear something you struggle with? If it is, this post is for you. I’ll discuss why we’re afraid and I’ll list four chances worth taking. You can start to overcome your fear of risk-taking today.

Eventually, it seems like nearly every freelancer I know has a promising client deal that they just can’t seem to close.

Over the years, many freelancers have asked me how to get a prospect that seems promising to commit to doing business with them. “I just know they’re about to decide,” the freelancer says.

If you’ve got a potential client sitting on the fence, you’re not alone. A prospective client who won’t commit can be a source of frustration for a freelancer, especially if you happen to be experiencing a period of freelancing famine.

It’s easy to fall in love with a potential client and get attached to the idea of doing the work. However, unfortunately we don’t always get a chance to do every project we fall in love with.

In this post, I’ll discuss why some potential clients won’t commit to working with you.

Should you network with other freelancers?

This has been a hotly debated topic, probably for as long as there have been freelancers.

On the one hand, freelancers don’t often hire other freelancers directly. (I myself have only done it less than dozen times, and that’s over a fairly long freelancing career.) Networking with peers may seem like a waste of time.

On the other hand, being part of a freelance community provides some significant advantages. In many ways, peer networking can give your freelancing business a boost.

Personally, I think that the benefits of networking with freelancing peers far outweighs the disadvantages. In this post, I’ll provide six reasons why I think you should network with other freelancers.

If you liked this post, you’ll probably also like 29 Easy Ways That Freelancers Can Feel Less Lonely (All New).